"Like those lounges of yore, it seemed to take a few minutes before my eyes adjusted to the overall dark hues of Time Warner Cable's website, and I could almost hear the over-worked air conditioner rattling in the background.

Say goodbye to the old website and hello to the new one, thanks to the start of a rebranding effort by the nation's second-largest cable operator. Time Warner Cable's revamped site makes ample use of "white spaces" (no, not the white spaces that the Federal Communications Commission recently ruled on) for an overall look that is much more open and easier on the eyes.

According to a Time Warner Cable blog post, the cable operator is not only rebranding its logo and website, but also the photography and graphics it uses, and TWC is launching new ad campaigns that are designed to highlight the new branding.

In order to better connect subscribers with the services it provides, Time Warner Cable has been working for more than a year with The Brand Union to update its logo and overall brand identity. In addition to the TV ads, the new branding effort will also start appearing on the sides of Time Warner Cable's service trucks.

Time Warner Cable's Marissa Freeman, senior vice president of marketing communications, explains in a video on the company's blog how the rebranding campaign intersects its services with subscribers' lives.

According to a recent story in Advertising Age, the campaign's tagline is "Moving forward to bring you back." In addition to the focus on a "lifestyle" brand, the Advertising Age story also made mention of a new pricing architecture that will debut early next year. The new pricing will give Time Warner Cable customers more flexibility in creating tiers and bundles that fit their specific needs, which sounds like the end result of the cable operator's segmentation effort that is underway.

Advertising Age said Time Warner Cable also plans on launching a customer service upgrade, as well as an expanded DVR offering (Time Warner Cable's flagship SignatureHome multi-room DVR service is currently being trialed in some systems) and the debut of Look Back.